Priorities
by Circle of Phoenix
Summary: Amanda Waller's attempt to bribe and blackmail Harley Quinn doesn't turn out quite how she was expecting. The question is if Terry McGinnis can become more then just another tool, a weapon, or a real hero? (BB:RoTJ and JLU compliant) WIP
1. Priority 1

Disclaimer - Batman is totally property of DC…. I disavow the intent to profit from any fan fictions in my endeavors to placate my brains twisted little plots and the obsessive need to cross over every Batman-verse I can get my hands on.

There was a thick envelope on Harley Quinn's table when she wandered into the living room for a spot of midnight tea. Her cane cracked against the arm of the man hiding in the shadows of her entryway, her dim blue eyes catching the knowing brown of Amanda Waller's.

"What's an old crow like you want with me?" Harley quipped, her voice thinly veiling the abhorrence she felt for the old busy body.

"A boy will be coming in for therapy, Doctor Quinn. We want you to treat him." Amanda responded, her hands dithering over the file on the table before opening the cover. "You'll be compensated for your troubles."

Harley huffed. She had met the director of Cadmus before. She was not impressed with her scare tactics nor was she easily convinced into giving in. Her life was all but over anyhow. The grandchildren were her only reason for keeping herself going. That and there was no one to keep those annoying brats from claiming her name as they had the Joker's.

"Nice try. Why are you bringing this to my attention? You surely have a better candidate then me." She spat out.

"We all make mistakes, Miss Quinn. Yours was with the former Robin. You'll treat the boy." Waller stated. "And your granddaughters will never see a day in Arkham."

Therefore, that was it. Cadmus had wanted something and the project did not go their way…

Harley smirked, her lips curving up into a former brilliance that had been absent for the last thirty or so years. There was something hidden in the depths of her past that she knew Cadmus was not aware. The bat had not seen it. Moreover, no one else but her even knew it was there…. Cadmus had wanted a bat they could control. They wanted her to help put the mold in place, to develop a mind that was already venturing into territories beyond their understanding.

She had known the first Batman almost as well as she had known Joker. Just as she knew, what the Joker had been planning once he got his hands on all that information. "Sure, Director. I'll treat your boy."

They would get Batman.

Just not the one everyone was thinking they wanted…


	2. Priority 2

Priority Two

Scooping up the file she had been left, Harley sat back on her couch to glance through it's contents. Her skills weren't up to the same rights they had been back before she'd become a hench girl to the Joker. All her time with the Joker and observing the macabre dance they shared with Gotham's heroes had kept some of her skills sharp. Reaching across the table for a stack of half used scrap paper to begin scribbling down several notes the aged villain began to read.

The boy could have once doubled as a Robin, she marked, her mind automatically cataloging his profile along with the two boy wonders she'd battled with. His profile pictures were flipped through, his grades merely glanced at. The police record caught her eye. The charges weren't really anything compared to what she had done, however it was impressive for a first timer.

Harley snickered at the comparisons.

He showed a flair for breaking and entering, inhibited only by a sense of compassion many would not find in the thug life. Unlike his companions, the McGinnis boy had been entered into an early education of self defense classes. He'd developed a knack for getting into fights early on, shortly after his ninth birthday. This was right around the time his parents had brought home a younger brother and marriage problems quickly formed under the stress. The on set of early sibling rivalry and the explosive situation in a family going it's separate ways had undoubtedly been the spark.

The fuel had come from the crowd the boy had been picked on by. Until McGinnis had used those early years in martial arts to take half of them down. Early brand Jokerz, Harley muttered to herself, making a note to discuss the boy's own brush with clown wannabes a few years earlier.

Fussing about the past would do neither of them any good.

Digging her phone from under a pillow, Harley tapped in the contact information she'd stored years ago. The dial tone lasted only a second before a gruff voice answered.

"What?"

"Just making sure you were still kicking, Batsy." she answered. "Waller came to see me."

"What about it?"

Slipping a hand around the phone, she tapped a finger on the old style prints she'd been given. "You know how Cadmus works. They want me to fix someone in their favor."

"Quinn," he growled, his voice full of the years of grit she was used to hearing from him.

"Cadmus wants another Bat, Brucie. They already have a candidate. Now, I can do us both a favor and try to ease this kid away from it, but they always have another plan in store for us." she interrupted. "I suggest you think about what they want and what they'll do to get it."

"Are you sure?"

"I've got their special little report right in front of me." she responded. "We're both getting too old to play games for very long. I'll make it simple. The boy is twelve years old and currently residing at Gotham's Juvenile Detention for Boys. His name is Terrance McGinnis."


End file.
